Police say they're getting ahead on crime areas

Published: Friday, November 23, 2012 at 12:47 PM.

Earlier this year, Gastonia created a program to increase landlord accountability for disruptive tenants at local apartments and rental homes.

Six months in, city leaders say it’s already paying dividends.

“The program continues to be a success,” Gastonia Police Chief Stacy Conley told City Council on Tuesday. “It’s operating as it was designed to.”

Police implemented the new Residential Rental Property Remedial Action Program in May, after City Council approved it. The aim is to stabilize residential communities where elevated crime — such as assaults and domestic disturbances — has hurt public safety and property values.

Gastonia is following the lead of many other cities nationwide with the program. It targets the small percentage of rental properties where disorderly activity is an incessant problem, even when there is tenant turnover.

Police previously had no way to require residential rental property owners to take responsibility for repeated problems. Landlords who now refuse to work with them on addressing troublesome properties may eventually face civil penalties or other court action, although authorities say that would be a last resort.

The program focuses on addresses where police have responded to at least seven disorder calls within a 12-month period, and are in the top 9 percent of highest crime calls. If an apartment or rental home falls into that threshold, police try to hold a meeting with property owners to determine why that’s the case. If necessary, they work with landlords on corrective steps that should be taken.

Earlier this year, Gastonia created a program to increase landlord accountability for disruptive tenants at local apartments and rental homes.

Six months in, city leaders say it’s already paying dividends.

“The program continues to be a success,” Gastonia Police Chief Stacy Conley told City Council on Tuesday. “It’s operating as it was designed to.”

Police implemented the new Residential Rental Property Remedial Action Program in May, after City Council approved it. The aim is to stabilize residential communities where elevated crime — such as assaults and domestic disturbances — has hurt public safety and property values.

Gastonia is following the lead of many other cities nationwide with the program. It targets the small percentage of rental properties where disorderly activity is an incessant problem, even when there is tenant turnover.

Police previously had no way to require residential rental property owners to take responsibility for repeated problems. Landlords who now refuse to work with them on addressing troublesome properties may eventually face civil penalties or other court action, although authorities say that would be a last resort.

The program focuses on addresses where police have responded to at least seven disorder calls within a 12-month period, and are in the top 9 percent of highest crime calls. If an apartment or rental home falls into that threshold, police try to hold a meeting with property owners to determine why that’s the case. If necessary, they work with landlords on corrective steps that should be taken.

Police began keeping track of where calls were coming from two years ago, to have data to work with when the program was implemented. Based on that, three properties were put into the program earlier this year, Conley said. All three are currently vacant, but in the same sense, are not contributing to criminal problems, he said.

Conley said his department has handed out 76 “courtesy letters” to owners of properties where at least five disturbance calls originated in recent months. The letters are designed to alert landlords to a problem before they reach the seven-call benchmark.

“We had very positive feedback from those management companies,” said Conley. “Practically all of those locations have shown a significant drop in those types of service calls now.”

The point of the initiative is to open communication between landlords and police about corrective steps that can be taken, and that’s working, said Gastonia Police Sgt. Doc Morton.

“We’ve had very positive feedback from our rental property owners and management companies,” he said. “Several of them are placing a portion of the ordinance in their lease now. They’re using it as a tool to assist if they have to go through the eviction process.”

A joint meeting is being planned between police and several management companies in December, to have further discussion about how to deter crime in local neighborhoods, Morton said.

You can reach Michael Barrett at 704-869-1826 or twitter.com/GazetteMike.